


It's always darkest before the dawn

by thesesongsaretrue



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Dreams, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-22
Updated: 2012-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-29 22:35:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/324913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesesongsaretrue/pseuds/thesesongsaretrue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River Song has a recurring nightmare she struggles to hide from the Doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally intended to be a one-shot, but got a *bit* longer than I was anticipating. Hope you enjoy it! Title from Florence & The Machine's Shake It Out.

Covered in sweat, River jolted upright in bed as she awoke, just barely stifling a scream.

Taking gasping breaths, she wrapped her arms around herself and looked around her cell. Instead of slowing, her breathing only picked up in pace as she took in the fact that she was alone in a cell in Stormcage.

Fighting back the rising tide of panic, she reached out blindly with her left hand, grasping at the wall next to her bed. Her fingers curled around the soft strip of silk there, and her breathing started to return to normal.

When they'd redone the ceremony in the current, non-aborted timeline (just to be safe, he'd said), he hadn't asked why she wanted to keep the bow tie in Stormcage rather than in their room in the TARDIS, and if he'd subsequently noticed that she'd hung it next to her bed he'd kept quiet about it – everyone was allowed their idiosyncrasies, and seeing as he had more than most, it was the least he could do.

She'd been thankful he hadn't asked because, in truth, she hadn't trusted herself to lie to him. When the newest guard had made a joke yesterday about the fact that she treated it like her only tie to sanity she knew she had laughed a little too brightly. If only he knew how right he was. Her bow tie to sanity, how rich.

When the dream came, as it had every night since Lake Silencio, it was the only proof she had that he was alive.

It had been so much worse before they had redone the ceremony and she'd been able to keep the bow tie. On those first two mornings - she fisted the bow tie in her hand as she recalled them - the guards had just managed to get into her cell and restrain her fast enough to prevent her from bashing her own head in against the wall, because all she had known was that she deserved to die, and die painfully.

She had killed him, you see, or at least that's what she believed in her dreams. Every night after she closed her eyes she ran from them, and every night they caught her in a new way and no matter what she did she was back in the suit, back in the Lake, and then he was there.

He was there, and somehow he knew about the aborted timeline, knew what she would do for him, so he begged her to kill him, and this was no Teselecta, it was her flesh and blood love. And she did it, she killed him, just as they'd always meant her to, just as everyone believed. And the last thing she saw in her dreams each night was the pain etched on his face as she shot him.

So when she awoke from the nightmare to her cell in Stormcage where she was imprisoned for his murder, the dream always seemed to be absolutely, terrifyingly confirmed. The touch of that silk on the wall was the only thing that could calm her fast enough (getting to her diary just took too long - she was a fast weapon, even more so when turned against herself). It assured her that he lived, that yet again the dream was just a dream.

Now taking deep, calming breaths as she stroked the bow tie hanging from the wall, she assessed the situation.

All-in-all, it seemed like she'd done pretty well. Her sheets and her clothes were all intact, and from the utter lack of attention from the guards, it seemed she'd managed to stay quiet as well. Of course, this wasn't how it had been when she'd first gotten the bow tie, oh no. Certainly she'd stopped trying to kill herself, but at first she had screamed in her sleep and awoken crying hysterically.

Oh how the guards had taunted her over it, the irony of her screaming in her sleep that she wouldn't kill him, she didn't care if he wanted her to, because, to them, that was exactly what she'd done. After the first week, she'd accepted that the dream wasn't going away, so her only mission had become to weather it as silently as possible.

Better they think her a remorseless, cold-hearted bitch than see how the thought of killing him pierced her heart. She'd improved with time, and it seemed that goal was now well in hand.

Now that she was awake, she really ought to get dressed though, because he was bound to show up fairly soon. As she chose an outfit for her next adventure, brightening steadily as she thought ahead to the likely adrenaline rush of running-hand-in-hand with him away from some danger or another, she reflected yet again on how grateful he was that he unquestioningly accepted her explanation of why she wanted to always sleep in her cell.

The Doctor lies, yes, but so does River Song.

She had quite simply told him that, since she had to serve her sentence, she'd prefer to spend her waking hours with him and her sleeping hours in jail. And if it was a bit strange that she was quite so fanatic about it, well, he could chalk it up to her being "young," he seemed to think that accounted for a fair amount of her behavior, evidently.

When they engaged in activities that would normally lead to a husband and wife staying in their bed together for the night, which they often did – the adrenaline of running with him wasn't the only rush she looked forward to during their adventures – she her expressed her strong desire not to waste a single sleeping hour when it could be working off her semi-endless sentence, and he roused himself enough to give her a warm, if slightly forlorn, kiss goodbye and drop her off at her cell for the night.

It pained her to leave him, and never more than in those moments, when she would much rather have spent the night sleeping in her husband's embrace. But not as much as it would pain her to have him know that she woke up screaming in a cold sweat every night after dreaming of really, truly killing him.

Not even the sadness of falling asleep alone in her cell after their first night on Calderon Beta, craving nothing so much as his arms around her, was as painful as the thought of him knowing what she dreamt.

She could see it in his old, old eyes about once a day, the sting of guilt and remorse over what her life was because of him, and he deserved to see her happy with him and not have any more reason for regret. She never wanted him to regret any of what they had, because she certainly didn't.

Little did she know that he could never regret what they had together, but that he rather regretted all the moments when he'd been so young and insensitive to who she was and what they were, all the times he couldn't and hadn't comforted her and let her know that she was loved, and none of those times did he regret more than that first.

But she was, in fact, young, so as she saw it this was how it would have to stay.

Nodding firmly to herself, she slung her bag over her shoulder and headed towards the door of her cell and her favorite blue box materializing outside of it.


	2. Chapter 2

No sooner did he swing the TARDIS door open than her cell door was soniced open and she was waltzing into the TARDIS, all remaining strain from the dream fading as her face lit up with a sly grin at seeing him. She was a bit young, yes, but not entirely unaware of her effect on him.

He swooped in for a kiss before she got much past the door, and though his hands wandered deliciously low on her back, she pulled away to quip "Hello sweetie" as she deposited her sack on the floor and gave the TARDIS controls a fond pat.

These essentials accomplished, she turned back to the Doctor, who was currently rocking back and forth on his feet with his hands tucked neatly in his pockets, looking oh-so-pleased with himself. Raising an eyebrow at this image, she inquired, "When are we for you then, love?"

"Just after the golden – but really SO golden, did you see how golden they were, they positively shimmered! – well I guess you might not have seen yet actually – well anyway the golden fields of Jentar."

Laughing warmly and clapping her hands together, she cried, "Ooh, how positively linear! That was yesterday for me as well." Now that smug expression made a bit more sense, she thought, and he supported this thought with his next comment, accompanied by a bop on her nose, "Mmmm, well in that case I hope you slept well, because as I recall I fairly tired you out." If she hadn't loved him so much that face he was making would actually have been smug enough to deserve a slap. She settled for stating that as she recalled the exhaustion was quite mutual and pushing him out of the way to adjust a knob he'd just needlessly fiddled with.

Pouting a bit at the ego check and piloting correction, he changed the subject, adding, "I did miss you in our bed this morning, you know. Are you sure you can't afford to really spend the night with me here just once a week, even? It wouldn't keep you from cutting much time off your prison sentence, and we could be so, so, what's the word? Cuddly! Yes, cuddly, we could be cuddly. I like cuddly. Or I think I like cuddly. No, scratch that, I definitely like it."

River frowned, and if he assumed it was because he shouldn't bother her about something she had already made so clear, well that was fine, though of course she was frowning because she, too, wished they could be, as he put it, cuddly. Facing away from him for a moment to make the lie easier, she replied, "No, you know I can't, don't want me caged forever, do you?"

Pouting again, he sighed, "No, River," and changed the subject again. "Thought we'd go somewhere new today…"

That was really all River heard, lost as she still was in her own daydreams about sleeping all night in their bed in the TARDIS with the Doctor, not having to fear her dreams.

"River, are you listening?"

"Mmmm, yes sweetie, something about a new planet, haven't been there before, some kind of specialized economy and diet or something."

"So you weren't listening then."

"Well you were rambling love, and I love when you ramble, but sometimes it doesn't seem worth it to actually catch it all." As the TARDIS landed, she slid her gun into its holster and headed for the doors, adding, "I'm sure the details will become clear quite imminently."

Watching her click down to the doors in her heels, he called out behind her, "Hell in high heels indeed, and a bad listener at that!"

"Oh shut up, you know you love it. This way you get to explain it all over again," she shouted back to him as she stepped outside, "And get my boots honey, it's a swamp out here."

He jogged down to meet her after fetching the requested boots, shaking his head as she changed shoes and chucked the heels back into the ship. "Yes, well I did mention the swamp bit but you clearly weren't listening so, oh never mind, let's explore, shall we?"

As it turned out, and as the Doctor was, in fact, quite pleased to explain to River again, they'd landed in the middle of a swamp covered in an odd type of water lily, which was apparently the aforementioned specialty crop of the planet. They were both less pleased to discover that this particular swamp was apparently ripe for harvesting, right that minute, as indicated by the arrival of a rather large automated harvesting boat, equipped with upsettingly large scythe-like blades skimming just under the water.

The TARDIS was up on a small bank, so she was perfectly safe, but it was unfortunate that at the moment when said harvester arrived River and the doctor had managed to wade their way into the middle of the swamp to more thoroughly check out the intricate underwater root systems of the strange plants.

Unfortunate for the harvester, that is.

A bit of running, well, more like trudging, later, as well as some well-aimed fire from River's gun and a not insignificant amount of waving of the Doctor's sonic screwdriver, found the harvester rather thoroughly out-of-commission.

Laughing slightly too loudly and trying to catch their breath, River and the Doctor finally made their way out of the mud and sat against the side of the TARDIS. They leaned against each other and quibbled affectionately over whether the shooting or the sonicing had been more effective against their mighty mechanical foe.

River snuggled into her husband's muddy arms, chuckling softly as he began to discuss the likely inner workings of the now-crashed harvester. Her eyes began to drift shut, and her head began to drop forward. She snapped back awake suddenly and scrambled up from next to the Doctor.

That had been close - one slip-up like that and the Doctor would know the truth of why she couldn't stay the night with him, and more than that, he would have to deal with the truth of what she dreamt, every single night. She just couldn't bring herself to put him through that. And since she firmly believed that the dream would never leave her, if he ever found out, she feared it would force them apart, and there was nothing more frightening to her than that. All this ran through River's mind in mere seconds as she ran a hand through her hair nervously and looked off into the distance. The Doctor had jumped up right after her, and was waving his arms around wildly as he walked up next to her, asking, "River? What happened, is something wrong? Do you think I was wrong about how the motor runs? Don't you think it's solar powered? Oh, I'm rubbish at this, just tell me what happened?" Now he was tapping on her shoulder and bouncing a bit.

River lied. She hated to, but it was the only way. "No sweetie, I saw something over there," she replied, pointing off into the distance and squinting.

"Oh well, are you sure, should we go in and use the scanners? I don't see anything…oh wait, what, oooh, that definitely looks solar powered don't you think?"

River nearly laughed aloud at the circumstances. Normally, she would be rather concerned to see another giant machine headed towards them, and somewhere deep down she was, but all she could feel was hysterical relief that somehow her lie had become truth.

As it turned out, the newest arrival on the horizon was carrying the local officials, who had been less than pleased to lose the signal of one of their mechanical harvesters, and were even less pleased to find that it had been destroyed by two mysterious strangers. That was, of course, before the Doctor won them over with a flash of his psychic paper and a long list of recommendations for ways to improve the design of said harvesters, complete with a demonstration in which he somehow managed to get the thing's engine up-and-running again and at 200% its previous efficiency.

River was fairly certain that the amount of flirting she was doing wasn't hurting either, but she would've been doing it anyway, just to see the Doctor's face as he struggled with being pleased that everyone found his wife so distracting and being annoyed that everyone else was *looking* at her like *that* - only he should be allowed to look at her like that. When she winked at him, he settled on a slightly exasperated eye roll and turned back to his demonstration of the engine alterations.

Eventually, after making sure they grasped all of the Doctor's revisions and could replicate them on the other equipment, the harvesting oversight team decided to bring River and the Doctor to meet the area regent, as he would undoubtedly be upset if such "important people" – River couldn't remember precisely what the psychic paper had billed them as – passed through the area without being brought to his attention.

A short flight later, during which the Doctor dragged her over to the viewing window and gestured excitedly at the swamps as they passed, and they landed at a sprawling compound, stretched out above the swamps and clearly modeled after the elegant flowers and leaves of the ubiquitous swamp plant. As they were escorted inside by several servants, they were hurriedly told that they were arriving just in time for the afternoon tea ritual, and would therefore be meeting the regent in his tea room.

The regent turned out to be a stately individual in a well-made suit, which earned him some appreciation from the Doctor. Sitting down in his elaborate tea room, the Doctor engaged him in conversation, asking for explanations of local practices, government structures, favorite foods, you name it. River, archaeologist that she was, perked up whenever the conversation wandered to historical events, but primarily let her eyes study the decoration in the room.

Murals, furniture, everything about the place seemed styled in one way or another after the planet's water lily – talk about a staple item – as well as vaguely reminiscent of the aesthetic style of earth's Ancient Greece. Her academic mind dissected the extremity of the plant's influence on habits, culture, and even language as she listened to the regent speak and observed the room, but more than that, something about this planet and its plant was bothering her, dancing just outside the grasp of her thoughts.

As she puzzled over this curiosity, two servants entered bearing an elaborate tea set and served tea to the regent and his two guests. By this point the regent had explained that, unsurprisingly, the tea was brewed directly from the dried leaves of the plant and allowed to steep for between two and ten days to more fully absorb the essence of the plant. As they were guests of honor, today's tea was taken from a batch that had been steeping for nine days. As the aroma of the tea reached her from the steaming cup that had been placed on the stand to her right, River was surprised by how appealing it was. If this was the sort of flavor the plant produced, no wonder it was so popular. The smell from this one cup was intoxicating, and River unthinkingly reached for it and brought it to her lips, inhaling deeply once before sipping.

At this point, though the Doctor had received his own cup, he was giving it no attention. Instead, he was staring at his wife intently from across the room. Something wasn't quite right with her, he thought, she was never this trusting about foreign foods on strange planets. In fact, she generally scowled at him as he dove for them unthinkingly, and he couldn't think of a single time when she'd been the one doing the diving.

As River tasted the wonderful, unbelievably delicious tea, allowing it to sit on her tongue for a moment, she suddenly realized what it was that had been escaping her about the planet. She thought back to doctor's rambling on the TARDIS when she hadn't been particularly paying attention and picked out what she had missed at the time. He had said he found the planet's name funny, but couldn't quite remember it – something like Lottofig or Fotophage – but neither of those was right, River realized with dawning horror – it was Lotophage. She was on a planet of lotus-eaters! In the shock of her realization she swallowed the sweet tea, only managing to quietly get out "Oh dear," and make eye-contact with the Doctor before slumping over and falling out of her chair to lie prone on the ground.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Absolutely invaluable beta duties for this chapter performed by Snowy Ashes!! <3

River's head had barely hit the thick carpet before the Doctor was kneeling over her. He immediately set about checking her breathing and pulse, while simultaneously rattling off furiously all the ways of permanently destroying the entire planet's population of that damned flower that he could think of off the top of his head. At this the regent's face paled substantially, and he at least had the good sense to back away from the Doctor and his wife. You didn't mess with a man with that look in his eyes, and though all he was talking about was killing plants, the regent could tell that plants wouldn't be the only thing dying if any permanent harm had been done to River.

Satisfied that River was decidedly still breathing, and didn't look injured in any obvious way, the Doctor stroked her hair back from her face gently and turned on the regent, pushing him roughly against the wall and demanding, "What was in that tea, what are these…these…these plants? You tell me what you've done to my wife and you tell me that there is a way to fix it, or, well I'll just let you consider what a man who can redesign all your harvesting equipment in under five minutes can do with several lifetimes and a good reason to do you some harm!"

Spluttering, the regent replied hastily, "She's asleep! And you didn't tell us she was human!" His voice took on a faint note of hysteria as he finished, "How could we have known she would react so strongly to the tea if you didn't tell us that she was human?"

The Doctor peppered him with more questions, "Are you sure she's just asleep? Does this happen to all the humans who drink this? Why do you even have this stuff? And, for the record, she's only partly human, so are you sure that's all that happened here?" Now slightly calmer and therefore pacing about the room, the Doctor continuously shifted his focus between River and the now thoroughly rumpled-looking regent.

"Yes, well this is why we have strict regulations regarding the arrival of humans on the planet! They must undergo immunization against the plant's soporific effects before consuming it in any form, and if they do not wish to undergo the immunization they must bring their own food supplies for the duration of the stay. In the few cases of individuals of mixed-human heritage we have seen, the plant's effects are only very slightly diminished. Assuming she only took a small sip of the nine-day tea, I would estimate that your wife will wake up, feeling rested if also quite confused, in about, well…just how human is she, exactly?"

"The non-human bits are very, very, very not human, ok? This isn't a usual case!"

Defensive and slightly annoyed, the regent answered, "Alright, if you insist on being vague, do the approximation yourself. A dose like that would put a full human in a deep sleep for about, oh, 36 hours?"

Taking in this information regarding the tea's strength, the Doctor frowned at the teapot and set about moving all traces of the tea as far away from River as he could. This accomplished, he knelt back down next to her and sat her up, sliding a hand under her knees and one around her back. Muttering to himself, he calculated, "36 hours for a normal human…based on previous observations on her ability to heal and absorb toxins relative to humans and…certain non-humans, I'd say River will be out for about 8 hours." He turned his gaze back on the regent, eyes narrowing, "You're sure she's just asleep and there will be no further adverse effects? Because-"

The regent cut him off. "Please, you must believe me. I would bet my life on it – and somehow I feel that I am. We deal with this sort of accidental human consumption more frequently than we would like. I know the look of it, and beyond that, we have a sleeping room in every compound for these situations. I can help you bring her-"

"No." This time it was the regent's turn to be interrupted. The Doctor now spoke in a tone of absolute authority and finality. Though it looked out of place coming from his young, gangly form, it was a tone earned by centuries of living and had within it the sound of dying worlds. "You will not touch her. And she will not stay here in your compound that is just - just crawling with those plants! You will get me an escort back to where you picked us up, immediately. If you are correct and she wakes up and is fine, you will never see me again. If that is not the case...For your sake let's just hope that's the case."

"Yes, absolutely, and it will be, I know it will be," the regent squeaked, "and I'll get you that escort right now, sir." With that, the regent spun around to frantically tap commands into a digital panel affixed to the wall behind him, presumably arranging for the ship they had arrived in to be prepared to take off. By the time he had finished that and turned back, the Doctor was standing with River in his arms, one hand under her knees and the around her upper back, having carefully tilted her head into his chest so as to not strain her neck.

If the regent found it surprising that this odd, wiry man clearly intended to carry her through the compound, he had the sense not to mention it as he led the Doctor back outside to the ship. He was even more surprised when the Doctor showed no sign of complaint or difficulty, not making a sound on the trip, his jaw set in determination. The only sign that the task was taxing him even slightly was when he chose to sit with River cradled in his lap on the return journey, rather than standing at the viewing windows as he had on the way in.

The regent personally piloted them back to the bank on which the TARDIS was parked, not speaking except to apologize solemnly and assure him that she would be fine one final time as the Doctor was leaving. The only response he received was a grunt and a firm nod over the Doctor's shoulder as the strange man snapped his fingers and walked into the open doors of his even stranger blue ship, carrying his wife over the threshold.

Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor's desire to see River comfortably situated was at war with his desire to be far away from the planet. Finally, he settled for arranging her temporarily on the console room couch before sending them into the vortex and having the TARDIS scan her. When the scanner confirmed that she was simply deeply asleep and decidedly unharmed, he finally let out a sigh of relief and relaxed a bit.

Picking her up and walking to their bedroom, he couldn't help but smile down at her. It dawned on him that this was the first time he had ever seen her so fully asleep since marrying her in his timeline. Before he had experienced the wedding, he had seen her fall asleep at campsites, and even on the TARDIS, but since the wedding he'd been trying to be fairly linear about visiting her. Since she was so intent on spending all her sleeping hours working off her sentence, this meant that as his wife he'd only ever seen her dozing lightly.

He felt a little guilty thinking it, but he was secretly pleased that there was no way he could practically return her to her cell in this state, since he would have to carry her all the way in and arrange her while evading the notice of the guards. The circumstances were unfortunate, but at least he would get to see what it would be like to have his wife sleep in their bed, and even more, what it would be like to be there when she awoke, to be the first thing her eyes saw when they opened.

With that thought, he laid her down on the bed, removing her shoes, gun, and other accoutrements. He then removed his own shoes and jacket and got in bed next to her, sitting up against the headboard with his legs stretched out. He wasn't going to sleep, but he could think over the schematics for improving the sensitivity of the TARDIS' internal scanners (his most recent project) while staying next to her and enjoying the warmth and calm of her sleeping body. Pulling the sheets and light blanket up over both of them, he smoothed her hair back and pressed a kiss to her forehead before settling back against the headboard and getting lost in the diagrams inside his head.


	4. Chapter 4

Four hours later, with about three and a half hours of River's forced slumber remaining, the Doctor had finished reviewing every schematic he could think of. He sat for about a minute, tapping his fingers on the top of his leg and glancing furtively over at River's sleeping form.

He really shouldn't, he thought. It was probably a bit creepy. Oh, but he so much wanted to.

So he did - he slid slightly further down in the bed and turned towards River, propping his head up on his left arm and unabashedly staring at her. It's just that she was so beautiful, lying there; her slow, regular breathing moving her chest ever so slightly.

They did so much running that sometimes he didn't have a chance to just look at her, and if he was to be completely honest with himself sometimes the irrational fear struck him that someday he wouldn't be able to remember every detail of her face. Someday, he would come to the end of their time together, and although his friends were always what he remembered most, River was so much more than a friend, and he wanted to have more than just memories of her. He wanted to have an exhaustive mental catalogue of everything about her. He knew he couldn't have her forever, he had long ago accepted that his life simply wasn't meant to be that happy, but if he ever reached a point when he couldn't call up a perfect image of her, he didn't think he would be able to stand himself, knowing he had forgotten the most wonderful thing that had happened to him. He couldn't hold onto her forever in person, but if he couldn't even hold onto her in his mind, he wasn't sure he deserved to have had her at all. So he wanted to permanently burn it all into his ancient mind - the way her nose crinkled when she laughed, the sly look she always gave him when she winked, and yes, every detail of her sleeping face.

A few minutes into the ensuing meditative contemplation of his wife's features, he noticed that River's eyes were starting to dart back and forth frantically beneath her closed lids. Sitting back up fully to get a better perspective, he watched as she began to shake her head ever so slightly back and forth in her sleep. Soon she was moaning softly. As this behavior went on, the Doctor had the impulse to shake her awake, but he realized that, drugged as she was, he wouldn't be doing much good; in fact he might hurt her by shaking her. She had to sleep off the full dose, the regent had explained, and simply couldn't be awakened until then.

The low-level head-shaking and moaning continued for nearly an hour, and then things began to escalate. The moans developed into soft cries of "No, no, no," and once even a whined cry of "don't put me in there," and she began to toss her head more vigorously. The doctor, horrified by his inability to wake River from what was clearly quickly becoming a terrifying nightmare, reached out during a slightly calm moment to smooth her hair back from where it had been flung across her face. River recoiled from his touch so violently that she nearly hit her head against the headboard, and he withdrew his hand as quickly as possible, briefly staring at the appendage as though it had done something horribly wrong.

After this, River stopped making any verbal sounds but began to throw her arms and legs about along with her head, lashing out against an unseen force as a child lashes out against someone trying to hold onto them. By now the Doctor was standing at the side of the bed next to her, bouncing back and forth from foot to foot trying to decide what to do. He'd seen parents deal with this sort of thing, maybe Amy and Rory could help, no that was a rubbish idea, they didn't need to see her this way, not to mention that it was at least partly his fault – he'd taken her to that stupid planet. In any case, the parents usually just shook the kid awake at this point and dealt with the aftermath of the dream. There was usually crying, but he knew what to do with crying, even crying River, what he didn't know what to do with was a thrashing, unable-to-be-awakened, terrified River. Oh this was bad; this was very, very not good.

In the middle of this last thought, a particularly violent shake on the part of River brought her head into contact with the headboard. It wasn't an incredibly hard collision, but she'd feel it when she woke up. At the cracking sound, the Doctor jumped into action, his fear for her safety overriding his fear that she would recoil from his touch. He jumped up on the bed and leaned his knees on her thighs with just enough pressure to keep them down, leaning over her to press her arms to the mattress with his hands and putting his forehead to hers. It was awkward, but it worked, after a final push of resistance against him, she settled back into the bed. Not wanting to release the pressure in case something changed suddenly, the Doctor stayed where he was. Face pressed into hers, he had an unfortunately excellent view of the contortions her face made as she processed whatever was happening in her dream. Rage warred with terror, then as her body relaxed fully, defeat swept across her features.

At this point the Doctor would have given anything, anything he could to be able to wake her up, but he knew whatever he did would simply be of no use until at least another hour had elapsed. River Song's features should never, ever show defeat - if only he could battle whatever demons were in her head right now alongside her. As a tear rolled down his cheek to land on hers, he began to whisper soft comforts to her, telling her that he loved her, he had always loved her, would always love her, and that she could do it, whatever she had to do in the dream that was terrifying her so, she could do it, and he would be there when she woke up, if she would just please, please wake up soon.

Once he was satisfied that the thrashing had truly subsided, he moved himself off of her to sit on the bed at her side, leaning over her a bit in case he needed to act quickly. Now as he timidly reached out to touch her face and smooth her hair she leaned into his touch, but then her facial expression changed to be heart-wrenchingly sad, and the doctor pulled his hand away again, thoroughly afraid that he had caused something to change for the worse in her dreamscape. Little did he know that it was, in fact, his arrival in the dreamscape that had caused the change.

Though her physical activity didn't pick up past lightly shaking her head at this point, River began to speak more. At first he couldn't make out much of what she was saying, a surprising amount of which seemed to be in Gallifreyan, though he still couldn't quite hear the words, so he wondered who she could be talking to. Then, suddenly, River got slightly louder and he could understand her words. With the first sentence, everything became horrifyingly clear to the Doctor. "No, I won't, I won't kill you my love, please, I know you aren't a robot, it'll kill you this time, and I can't." Too concerned with what she was saying to care that she couldn't properly hear him, the Doctor began to argue back with her softly. "No River, no River I'm right here, we've done that already and I was a robot and see, I'm here, complete with bow tie, no River, you don't have to kill me again, it's all right, it's all right. Hush now, River, hush, I'm here, I'm here." He repeated it over and over as she continued to argue with some other him, growing increasingly agitated again until she was gripping the sheets at her sides in desperation and shouting, "I will not kill you, I will not, I will not, please, please, please, please, please, please, don't, I won't, please."

Then something clearly changed, and he was afraid that he knew too well what it was. River stopped yelling and began rocking from side to side, whimpering "please, oh no, please, no, please, how could I?" and crying, her face an extreme contortion of pain and regret. As suddenly as all this had started, it ended, and River sucked in a giant breath and bolted upright in the bed. The transition happened to quickly that the Doctor was slow to respond and nearly got smacked in the face with her shoulder.

River woke up with a gasping breath, her eyes blocked with tears, and, as she did every morning, reached out blindly with her left hand for the bow tie attached to her wall. Her left hand met only air. Panic rising further within her, she cried out and started to stand, trying to clear away the tears so she could see. Had to get up, had to end it, killed him, shouldn't live. Then suddenly two hands gripped her shoulders firmly and turned her around. What. Couldn't they just let her die?

This was the part the Doctor was prepared for, or so he thought, the part with the crying and the comforting and the making it all better. Instead River was inexplicably scrambling at the air with her left hand, and then shouting something about dying and trying to get up. This wasn't right. He grabbed her by the shoulders with slightly more force than he'd intended, turning her around so she could see him. That should fix it, now would be the crying part! And the hugging. He hated to see her cry, but he could do the hugging, after watching that dream, he might even need some hugging. But she would get hugged first, of course, so hugged, not enough to hurt, but just lots of hugs. And maybe some kissing on her head, that seemed right.

This really wasn't the Doctor's day for predicting outcomes, evidently.

As she was pulled around, River's eyes finally cleared in time for her to see her captor head-on. He looked at her with floppy hair all askew, mouth twisted in a frown, tear stains on his cheeks, and that silly, wonderful bow tie around his neck. The smile never reached the corners of her mouth before it was replaced with a look of total shock and horror.

He was ali - Oh no – oh no no no no, he had seen her have the dream, and from the tears in her own eyes it hadn't been a quiet one. With that, she ran. She didn't know where she was running, but she needed to get away from him. She nearly fell as she tripped over her own shoes on her way out of the bedroom, taking off at a full run through the corridors of the TARDIS once she got through the doorway. She ran through corridor after corridor, eventually coming to a stop when she felt she had travelled an adequate distance and sliding to the floor in a heap. She wasn't surprised he hadn't followed. Why would he have followed, he undoubtedly couldn't bear the sight of her. She pulled her knees into her chest and hugged herself tightly.

She was so panicked about him having seen her that she couldn't even think straight. Her brain just kept yelling at her over and over again inside her head, he saw you, it's over, he saw you, it's over, and he'll never want to see you again because it will hurt him too much. It was her worst case scenario come true, but at the same time her body just couldn't accept that, just couldn't take in that it was all over because of a dream, so she could neither move nor get past that one thought. Her eyes glazed over as she stared ahead, and all she could hear was the sound of her blood pounding in her ears. When the pounding in her head became so loud that she could hardly hear her own thoughts, she started to say them aloud, a litany of "he saw you, you ruined it, he'll never want you, you're too damaged" spoken coldly to the air above her knees.


	5. Chapter 5

The Doctor had been too surprised by River's flight to even follow after her. He trusted that the TARDIS would help him find her when she needed to be found, but more than that he just couldn't figure out what was going on. Dumbfounded, he sat on the bed trying to figure it out, having dropped his arms to his sides, but still clenching his hands as though around the shoulders of the now-vanished River. Well, from her response when she woke up, he could tell that she had still fully believed the dream. The reaching out of her left hand suddenly clicked with something he had long found curious about the décor of her cell – ahhh, the bow tie on the wall next to the bed.

Wait, that bow tie had been there for every time he had seen her during her first month in Stormcage…How long had she been having this dream? Did it happen every night? Why had she never told him? Well, that he could figure out later, right now he needed to know what had gone wrong in the moment. Surely when she saw him, it should have been an even better reassurance that he was alive than simply touching his bow tie…what had made her run? He had seen her face when she saw him - first happiness, which made sense given that she had just previously believed him to be actually dead at her own hands, but then fear. That was what frightened him the most about the situation, making his breath catch in his throat almost as much as when he'd seen her drop to the floor in the regent's tea room. River should never have reason to fear him, and raw fear had been written all over her face as she fled.

The Doctor stood up and started to pace at the bottom of the bed, drawing his hands through his hair over and over again. Pacing always helped.

Alright, so River had been dreaming of having to actually kill him, and from the bow tie, it seemed reasonable to conclude that she'd been having the dream since being imprisoned. He hadn't seen it before because she wanted to sleep in Stormcage to work off her…OH. Oh of course. She'd been lying to him. Of course. Clever River, she must not have wanted him to know.

But why? Surely she would know that he would just want to help her. Did she not want help? No, that couldn't be it…something else must be going on. He sometimes forgot how young she was in terms of their relationship, this soon after the wedding. The flirting and banter and even the sex were hardly different at all, but then she went and did something like this, lying to him and hiding non-Spoiler-y things from him. He loved her just the same of course, but she had so many insecurities about him and his love for her, and he always feared that if he did the wrong thing she would never become the confident woman who trusts in his love for her, even when he's so young he doesn't know it himself.

In any case, he should find her, shouldn't he? But he didn't want her to do anything to hurt herself – or him (he checked the table and was pleased to find that she hadn't taken her gun, but still) when he found her, and without knowing what her reasons were for not wanting him to see her, he just couldn't predict her reaction. Poking his head out into the hall as he tried to formulate a plan of action, he heard sound coming from the corridor around the corner.

Oh, his clever, clever Sexy, she'd figured it all out for him, hadn't she – brought River right back to where he could find her, and maybe even learn what was going on in her head before he approached. He gave the wall a fond and gracious pat and walked gingerly down the hallway towards the sound, trying to make as little noise as possible. Just before the corner, he started to be able to make out what she was saying.

Oh, River, no, how could she think that, he thought to himself, he would never leave her, not for anything, and certainly not for this. It didn't make her damaged. So much the opposite in fact, it made her whole. She had been through a traumatic experience, he'd yelled at her for trying to save him, for God's sake, of course the experience would affect her! And worst of all, to him, was her statement, repeated amidst various others, that he would run from her because he wouldn't want to face what he'd done to her. It was the worst to him because he knew the belief wasn't entirely unfounded. Sometimes he ran; he ran because it hurt. But never from River, he could only ever run with River or towards River, never away, and oh, how she needed to know that right now.

He approached her like one approaches a frightened, cornered animal. He walked up to her slowly, with his hands out and open, asking "River, can you hear me? You need to listen to me River. Breathe River, take deep breathes and listen to me, please? Please listen to me my love, can you hear me? Hmm?" As he lowered himself to her level, squatting next to her, she stopped speaking and nodded her head nearly imperceptibly, but he could tell she was still a ball of fear.

River could hear something over the sound of the blood pounding in her head and her own speech. As the sound got closer she could make out the Doctor's voice. Why was he here? Why had he come to find her? What could he possibly have to say to her? Was he going to tell her why they couldn't see each other anymore? She didn't want to hear it, but she didn't have the strength to resist anymore, so when he came down next to her she nodded, hoping to at least get it over with quickly. She couldn't look at him, but she stopped speaking so she could hear what he had to say – she was afraid he would keep trying to explain to her if she didn't seem to be listening. He hated when she didn't listen.

Careful not to touch her yet or scare her off, the Doctor began to speak slowly and softly, struggling to keep his thoughts from racing ahead and his words from coming out all at once. He knew she loved it when he rambled, but he really wanted to be utterly clear this one time and not stray from his mark.

"River Song, Child of the TARDIS, my wife, you are by far the best thing in my life. I know you are very, very afraid, but I need you to listen closely to me. I will never leave you, River. I will never run from you. No matter what you do, no matter how hurt I am or how hurt you are, I will never, ever leave you. In my life, I have hurt many people and yes, sometimes I have run away from those people, from what I did to them, but that isn't who I am anymore River, don't you see? Don't you see what your love has taught me? You have taught me that love means being willing to get hurt and to be hurt, and never, ever running away. You need to trust me, and I know I could say that someday you will, but I need you to trust me right here, right now, to trust that I love you, to trust that I can handle everything about you, and most of all to trust that your love has made me stronger, strong enough to stay. Always."

"Please look at me, River?"

She turned her head slowly towards him, though her eyes were still focused slightly past him.

"You are not damaged, you are beautiful, and I know the dream is scary, hmm? And you're right, it does hurt me to know what you go through, but it hurts me because I love you, and that love is never going to go away, so leaving you right now would only leave me hurting and with a gaping hole in my life where your fire and spark and guns and heels used to be. We can get through this, together, if you will believe me and let me in. I wish I could make you, River my love, but I can't. I know you are afraid, but I also know you are strong, so very, very, incredibly strong. And it's ok if you can't do it right now, I can wait. Your mother taught me about that, you know, your mother and your father taught me about waiting, so I can wait for you if you need it. I'll be right here."

With that, he swallowed, afraid that if he cried he would scare her off with the intensity of his feelings. He sat down next to her so that he would be more comfortable while he waited. He really was prepared to wait as long as she needed.

River had heard him. She had heard him and understood him, and she believed that he meant what he said, but that didn't mean it wasn't incredibly difficult to reach out to him. She had given her regenerations for him and then nearly destroyed the universe to make sure he knew he was loved, but trust was a very different thing than sacrifice. Sacrifice was noble and it hurt in the moment, but trusting was risky and carried with it the potential for enormous hurt if that trust was ever betrayed. If River was ever going to really trust though, she knew it had to be him, and it had to be now. This choice wouldn't come again. Somehow though, she thought he really understood her, even now. He was letting her make her own decision, in her own time. She really hoped he could deal with the outcome of the choice she was about to make.

Suddenly, the Doctor felt River moving. Her left arm slowly uncurled itself from around her knees and, without looking, she brought it up to touch his bow tie. His hearts nearly burst out of his chest. He was so touched and so proud of her. She was saying yes, yes to him, and really, yes to herself, to the part of her that needed to believe, to trust, and to be loved. Following her example, he didn't turn to look at her, but slowly moved his own left hand up across his chest to rest on top of her fingers as they ran over and over the red silk. They sat there that way for ten minutes before River broke the silence to say it aloud. "Yes," she said softly, "yes."

The Doctor looked over to find her facing him, her chin set in determination, but with the remnants of fear in her eyes. She still wasn't looking at him, keeping her eyes downcast instead. He brought his left hand up to touch her chin lightly, and the contact startled her into properly looking at him. Once he had her complete attention, he nodded, saying only, "Thank You." Her eyes locked to his, she nodded back, more firmly this time. Not breaking eye contact, he allowed his eyes to well with tears and watched as hers did the same. As her tears began to spill over onto her cheeks one by one, he pulled her into his chest. Surrounded by the arms of the man she loved, but more importantly, the man she trusted with all her heart – and what a terrifying but amazing thought that was – River cried. She cried because she had believed she had lost him forever, she cried because her dreams frightened her, and she cried because she dared to believe that it would be alright, that she would be alright, and that they would be alright. Together.

As his wife's tears spilled onto his shirt, the Doctor sighed with relief at having successfully gotten to the hugging part. He heard and felt her sob into him as he shifted her in his arms. He swept his left arm under her legs, wrapping his other arm around her back and scooting her onto his lap, not entirely unlike how he had held her as she slept on the flight back to the TARDIS. Once he had repositioned her, he released her legs and used his left arm to press her into him tightly, freeing his right arm to run through her hair. Sobbing quietly but forcefully into him over and over again, she fisted her right hand in the material of his shirt and buried her face in his chest. For the next hour they stayed in the same position. He rocked her gently as she cried herself out, muttering sweet nothings into her hair in between the kisses he was repeatedly pressing to the top of her head. Eventually she stopped crying and sniffled loudly, muttering an apology about the current state of his shirt. When he still didn't stop kissing her head, she laughed and turned her face up to his. "My lips are down here, sweetie, you really ought to have figured that out by now." Surprising himself with a laugh of his own, he met her challenge and kissed her lips firmly. Kissing him back, she untangled herself from his lap and they stood up together. Once standing, they hugged properly, him telling her how proud of her he was, and her thanking him for saying just what she needed to hear and for letting her make the choice.

River stayed on the TARDIS for a full week and a half, letting the Doctor comfort her each night as she admitted how much she feared falling asleep, learning in exchange about many of the things that he had learned to fear in his long, long life. Each night she fell asleep clutching his hand, and each night he woke her at the first sign of the nightmare. By the end of the week, she had started to have other dreams, and before he reluctantly dropped her off at Stormcage for at least one night – she did sincerely insist on spending some time in her cell – she slept for two nights in a row without any sign of the dream returning.

Years and years from the day she made the decision to trust him fully, after her trust in him had saved her goodness knows how many times, it was thinking back to that moment and to that conversation that allowed her to get through meeting up with him when he was so young that he didn't trust her. Ironically, she could still trust him when he was that young, and thinking back on it, she realized it had been the same for him. When he met her as Melody, he had trusted her, trusted in the hearts he knew she had, though she had been so very, very far from trusting him. And though it always stung a bit, seeing him that young and knowing he didn't trust her yet, she remembered how much she had appreciated him giving her the space to make that choice herself, so she gave him the same opportunity. Even in their timey-wimey relationship, it seemed only fair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welllll, that was decidedly longer than I intended. A bit past one-shot status, wouldn't you say? Comments much appreciated!


End file.
